


How Gamora's Life Literally Became Gumdrops With the Same Amount of Destruction

by bluerosele



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Drax has no right being this good at board games, Fluff, Gamora never asked for this, Gen, IN SPACE, Pointless fluff, Small Groot is small so very small, There are no rules in Candy Land, They are literally playing board games, What the frak is Candy Land
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3992860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluerosele/pseuds/bluerosele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamora couldn’t have foreseen her life being this when she agreed to join an official squad not involved in destroying aspect of attack, but she had never asked for any of this. There are a lot more board game battles involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Gamora's Life Literally Became Gumdrops With the Same Amount of Destruction

If board games were as much as a requirement in the self made family domesticity as Peter has aggressively tried to convince them it is, Gamora might’ve reconsidered moving into his moving dorm. Intergalactic guardianship and maintenance be damned, if she had to deal with another Monopoly lost despite carefully considered premeditation she might actually have to join in on the screaming matches between Peter and Rocket. 

The whole process is unnecessary, Drax always wins. Gamora thinks Peter and Rocket might actually work better in trying to overthrow Drax at boardgames than defending the universe, but to be fair its beginning to defy all sense of logic. They had to explain what a thimble was, someone who doesn’t understand the pieces of monopoly shouldn’t immediately win every time. 

But, they keep at it. A bit to make Peter happy, mostly to keep him from getting upset. And while Drax always winning means Peter and Rocket has to suffer the contradictory patterns of Monopoly Strategy, it also means Peter’s losing as well. Peter spluttering for a rematch, and looking less put together than he always does, with his face catching as much red as he does when someone touches his walkmen, is enough victory for Gamora. 

Until, one day, Peter has to be Peter and find a loophole. 

“Holy shit, guys, I found Candy Land in the quarantined planet we were investigating yesterday!”

Gamora has five seconds to process what exactly he’s just been said before a boxed with flayed edges and cartoon characters much too happy about how decrepit and worn they are is flung over into his lap. She breaths deep and counts to one hundred several times over. 

“The thought never occurred to leave something in a quarantine zone because you found it in a quarantine zone?” Gamora stares deep into the mud slime things eyes and hopes no similar possible infection remnant on the box will render her the same way. 

“Dude, it’s Candy Land.” Gamora says, as if this is good enough reason to make the house a possible quarantine zone. Gamora faces him (to look away from that horrible sludge monster) and sees the full sincerity and intensity in Peter’s eyes. She hates him having eyes that are enough of an excuse to make her want to do whatever makes Gamora happy. 

“Rocket, our grand leader might have killed us.” Gamora says upon Rocket’s entrance from the kitchen area. With a level of expected constant exasperation, no doubt exercised over the years of dealing with what he has he leans over to see what Gamora’s talking about.

“No shit!” Gamora jumps at Rocket’s recognition. “I’m on Peter's side with this. Possible death by unknown Governmentally regulated planet plagues are worth this. It’s Candy Land. Played it in Keystone Quadrant. Beat the crap out of everyone, both the game and well—” he giggles and smiles wide into the same feral ferocity all of them are capable of, but usually don’t show to each other. Gamora’s beginning to fear game night. 

Gamora doesn’t know how she’s allowed herself to be in the position of constant threat of these losers, and hugs Groot’s pot closer to her chest. Taking pity on her, Groot smiles and sways squeaking out a small “ _‘m groot!’_. 

Rocket makes a victorious snarl noise, “Ha! Groot, says it's clean, no pathogens airborne or otherwise. At least none known in the physical world and if we pass that threshold then we have other things to worry about.” 

Gamora grabs the edge of her nose, the way Peter taught her, when her head feels like it might actually explode with these idiots. “We’ve faced condensed forms of energy outside of biotic limit, nanotechnology isn’t that far of a step. There could be nano warfare raging in our ship right now.” She coughs and looks down at accidentally saying ‘our’, hoping if she disconnects then they won’t perseverate on it. 

They do. Peter jumps over the couch back and folds himself around her shoulders in a hug that she’s too comfortable in to motivate herself to reject. “Again, more to worry about later, Gam.” 

“Call me that again and you’ll say it through your spleen—”

“This is more important anyway, I have a feud to win. Drax! Get in here now I’m challenging you to the final showdown!” Peter says, jumping out of his hold on Gamora and standing on top of the poor coffee table. 

“Hey, stop that, that table’s been through too much you don’t always have to stand on things to make a point—” 

“Drax! Come out and face me, I demand this battle!” 

Shuffling around the corner, Drax emerges looking wary and already done. “Please. Do not shout.” 

“Consider it my battle cry,” Peter says jumping down from his podium. He saunters up to Drax until they’re practically touching and Gamora rolls her eyes at Peter’s _Star-Lord_ stance. “You. Me. Candy Land. I’m done with this Monopoly shit. I don’t know how you do it, whether intensive Monopoly playing was a part of earning your Destroyer title, but I intend to level the playing field.”

“It is not leveling the playing field if I do not know what it is you are talking about.” Drax sighs, not exasperated but almost tired, as if he’s had to explain the requirements to be fair in Candy Land before. 

“Uh, yeah it is because you’ve obviously become a master at Monopoly by some preconceived way, no one is that good at Monopoly without practice. Hell, even after that no one’s good at Monopoly. No one is good at Monopoly ever—”

“If I accept your challenge will you not talk so much?” Drax says, with no malicious intent just genuine want for quiet. Gamora can sympathize. 

“I can try?” Peter shrugs. He sticks out his hand and waits. Gamora can see the fight drain out of Drax and realization this is something Peter will fixate on until it’s fruition. Drax shakes his hand, carefully so as to not break his bones. It’s almost sweet. 

“Challenge accepted, worthy foe.” Drax smiles at him, then finally looks towards the barely-a-box-box and slows his hand shaking. “So, what exactly is Candy Land?” 

“Well, see it’s…well, actually?” Peter licked his lips and turned his face to the sky. “Um, I don’t know how to explain?”

“Oh my god,” Gamora banged her head on the back of couch. Groot reaches up, wrapping a flexible twig around her finger. 

Peter continues ignoring the thunk of her skull against the couch, “There’s really no way to play, I think it I think it has something to do with lady in the blue dress? Like? She seems important. She has a blue dress. And a wand. And her hairs blue. That usually means something important.”

“I thought you were a master at this game?” Drax somehow teleports around to the chair behind Peter who jumps at how close his voice is. 

“Yeah, yeah I am. Give me a second to harness my powers.” 

“Your powers are correlated to this board game—?”

“No. Drax. Just, I’m trying to remember backstory.” 

“You intervened in a conspiracy of perilous power, and after defeating it, we started a team meant to fight for Intergalactic defense—”

“ _Drax._ ” 

“This is an effective challenge, Peter.” Gamora says trying not to smile. It’s made significantly harder when his head snaps up with the miffed indigence that makes his eyebrows somehow reach his hairline and eyes bulge out simultaneously. 

“Don’t you start too, you get just as annoyed by the mysterious unfair plays of Monopoly.” 

“Oh, do I? Not all of us are as easily effected by the outcomes of board games.” Gamora lies as well as she does anything that diverges from fact. She glances upwards to seem contemplative so her eye twitch isn’t as obvious by those watching her. 

“Sure, but you do,” Gamora can feel Peter’s look and makes the mistake of turning back to see him smile with the same knowing smile he always has. Doubly obnoxious in that more often than not Peter is guessing what’s going on and always getting it right. “I can tell.” 

Gamora doesn’t know why but her defensive instincts do an intense round and focus on that, and she sort of forgets to breath for a second. Groot looks at her worried. As worried as a tree can be. “You can what?” 

“Tell. You’re pretty easy to read.” This isn’t something Gamora needs to be hearing while Peter is going about setting up some board game called _Candy Land_. Gamora won’t be one to lie about being humble, her skills are extensive, but her show of expression is limited. There’s not much she can call her own in means of peaceful defense. Her face, and all it’s many structured stoicisms, being one.  

“I have it from several accounts I’m quite the opposite,” she says trying to use one of those exact faces now. 

“Maybe you are to them, but I’ve got it figured out,” Peter waves a little card with a red star on it at her, and Gamora can tell too. Gamora can tell Peter’s not lying or trying to sound more like a smart-ass than he already is. He meant it, he meant he had thought about and tried to figured out small things; like what annoyed Gamora about board game night. This was something Peter had put effort into and was confident enough in claiming he’d made some discovery. And, unintentionally, break through something Gamora had spent years building. 

“What the hell is the red star for?” Peter says, immediately afterwards getting distracted by the piece of paper in his own hands. He’s going to be the end of Gamora. “These are all just shapes, seriously what am I supposed to do with shapes?” 

“Peter, I don’t think there even are rules, don't let the cartoons fool you it's gotta be an all out chaotic war.” Rocket grabs the actual board and spins it around in his hands a few times. “I can configure this baby into something a little more fun if—”

“No, no!” Peter clutches the board game. “You’re not hurting the remnants of my long lost Terrain experiences.”   

“I see you did not anticipate this turn of events, and must be having a hard time knowing your childhood is a lie,” Drax says, leaning forward and placing a caring hand on Peter’s shoulder. “If you would like to cancel the match I understand.” 

“No. This is happening. I had a plan, this was going to start a revolution, I jeopardized a plague to make this happen.” 

“You didn’t know about it being clean?”

“That’s not important, what’s important is—aha! Wait, no I think I’ve got it. Or the instructions do. Oh, ha, I was right the blue lady is important.” 

Gamora sits back and observes the chaos progress to even more frantic chaos to flying shapes and screamed magic candy names. She couldn’t have foreseen her life being this when she agreed to join an official squad not involved in destroying aspect of attack, but she had never asked for any of this. When Peter looks over in the midst throwing the stupid shape cards to smile at her Gamora realizes it didn’t matter. This is how things were meant to be, and she would never wanted it to change. 

Drax ends up winning Candy Land too.


End file.
